Maire Tecnimont is an Italian construction engineering company that works in the refining, fertilizer, and petrochemicals industries, the company employs around 8,000 people in 40 countries. The head of the company told Reuters that the company hopes to pick up business from Sonatrach, the Algerian state owned Energy Company as the new management of the Algerian government-owned company commences investment again.

Pierroberto Folgiero, the chief executive officer of the Milan-based oil and gas Services Company said that the company saw opportunities in Algeria as the gas-rich country reorders its energy sector and restarts projects.

Folgiero said in an interview that in his opinion the new management of Sonatrach is doing really well and they are taking part in a few bids for work with them.

Algeria, a member of OPEC is a major supplier of gas to Europe but the country has been hit hard by a fall in oil prices as well as a struggle in the country’s bit to attract energy investments. Italian oil giant Eni has important gas contracts in the country.

Last year, Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour took over as head of the Algerian state-owned company Sonatrach to fix a company that have been plagued by contract disputes with foreign firms, red tape, and slow production.

The Italian Maire Tecnimont is eager to grow its business in the United States while also paying a lot of attention to South East Asia. The company recently got into the Philippine and Malaysian markets using local partners.

Maire Tecnimont’s CEO Folgiero said they are looking at great interests in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. The company is traditionally strong in the Middle East and Russia and last year, it saw its revenue jump 44% to €3.5 billion ($4.3 billion), supported by a record order backlog worth €7.2 billion. Just last June, the company signed a bumper contract with Russia’s Gazprom worth €3.9 billion.

The company’s CEO said that the group was eager to consolidate the growth trend of last year to this year. He said that there is a trend of investments in the downstream as the big national oil companies reconsider what to do with crude reserves, concentrating on petrochemicals.

He added that growth will be organic, while acquisitions and mergers not a priority. He said there is a lot of market to capture, and they don’t need to buy companies to increase the capacity of their production.

However, potential business is on hold in Iran and nothing is expected from there in the near term. Maire Tecnimont in 2016 signed a memorandum of understanding with Teheran worth around €2 billion, the company is one of the few contractors from the West that are sill staying in Iran after numerous sanctions.

Despite that, Folgiero has said that the Iran market has not restarted for a variety of reasons, including the lack of capital.